Foreign Policy Opportunities for the GOP

John Norris makes some interesting suggestions for how Republicans could seize the initiative on foreign policy. Here is his first proposal:

If Nixon could go to China, why can’t brave Republicans push for normalizing relations with Havana?

This is a good idea, but one that I doubt Republican hawks would be willing to contemplate. Pushing for normalized relations with Cuba would be a much-needed demonstration that Republican foreign policy thinking isn’t completely inflexible, and it would show that Republicans don’t want to hang on to failed policies indefinitely. It would be a relatively painless change to make politically, and it might even work to the GOP’s benefit in a Cuban-American community that is no longer as reliably supportive of the party as it once was. The main reason that it isn’t likely to happen is that pro-embargo, anti-engagement attitudes are so entrenched among most national Republican leaders that any significant change on Cuba policy in favor of normalized relations would be seen as a betrayal of principle. Hawks and democratists would both throw a fit, and accuse anyone who proposed this as a friend of Castro. This is completely the wrong way to look at it, but it is unfortunately the way that party leaders steeped in moralizing rhetoric tend to view these things.

The case for renewed Republican interest in promoting free trade is less clear-cut. First, it’s not as if Republican politicians and pundits haven’t tried using free trade as a bludgeon against the administration over the last four years. Many of them tried to shoehorn this criticism into the mostly bogus argument that Obama was treating U.S. allies poorly, but even on its own this wasn’t a very effective attack. It hasn’t “worked” because Obama hasn’t been as hostile to trade agreements as his critics have claimed, and because pushing for even more free trade is a political loser. The last thing that Republicans need to be doing is reinforcing the mostly justified view that their party’s agenda prioritizes corporate interests over the interests of workers, and that is the message that a new focus on trade would send. Republicans might “look serious on the economy” in the eyes of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal by doing this, but that is hardly the audience it needs to reach at present. It would be more politically valuable for Republicans if they made some effort to demonstrate that they actually believed the “fair” part of the “free but fair trade” phrase. As it is, when Pawlenty or Rubio has said this in the past it has been little more than a throwaway line, and I think most Americans can recognize it as such.

Norris’ most questionable recommendation is on North Korea. He writes:

With the Korean peninsula ever-more restive, Republicans may be positioned to get some mileage out of the situation if the situation continues to erode and U.S. handling of the crisis looks poor. The challenge for Republicans will be take shots at the White House for its handling of North Korea in a way that doesn’t look crassly opportunistic or overtly bellicose [bold mine-DL]. That might require more discipline in the Republican foreign-policy ranks than we have seen of late.

This seems like a lose-lose proposition for Republicans, and more important it is an undesirable invitation to mischief-making. There is nothing easier than attacking an administration’s handling of North Korea. North Korea defies every kind of American and allied approach, so it’s easy enough to point out that current policy isn’t “working” in the sense that North Korea continues to make threats and act provocatively no matter what anyone else does. For that reason, it’s extremely difficult to criticize any administration’s response without appearing “crassly opportunistic or overtly bellicose.” It’s also a situation that is tense enough that the U.S. and South Korea aren’t going to benefit from more agitation here for “doing more.” I fear that this is the only suggestion that Norris makes that Republican hawks might end up following, because it is the one where the potential for irresponsibility and doing real damage is greatest.

To add to Norris’ suggestions, here is one more that most elected Republicans could agree on that would be both wise and politically savvy. Republicans in Congress should publicly reject any further U.S. meddling in the Syrian conflict. There is no enthusiasm among rank-and-file Republicans for arming the opposition there. Like most other Americans, most Republicans see no reason to do this, and they don’t want the U.S. more involved in the conflict. This is a position that would show that McCain, Rubio, et al. don’t speak for the party on this issue, and it would align the GOP with public opinion while holding a position that is in the best interests of the U.S. This would demonstrate that there are some conflicts that Republicans don’t want the U.S. involved in, and it would put them in a far better position to criticize the administration’s coordination of arms shipments from the Saudis and Qataris. As it is, McCain and Rubio are the public faces of most of the party on this issue, which means that Republicans are identified with policy options that are overwhelmingly unpopular as well as being foolish.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 11 comments

11 Responses to Foreign Policy Opportunities for the GOP

I suggest that there are few brave Republicans left in office, and none in any position to do anything.

Those prominent in setting the foreign policy dialog are coming from ignorance, elected through primaries catering to the extreme, and fueled by group-think backed up by a media echo chamber. No real individual courage there – it’s a mob.

The rest are (mostly) keeping their heads down and trying to hold onto their seats.

Cuba: Good idea, which has been talked about for decades. Newly-elected Senator Flake of Arizona has been a vocal Republican advocate for dropping the embargo. Won’t happen because Cuba is an issue that a small voting bloc in a key state cares about passionately, and everybody else is indifferent. The Cubano vote is shifting — it was evenly divided this last time, and a Cubano Democrat defeated a Republican in a HoR race — but there are enough Cubano geezers to keep the stranglehold on.

Drones: Boutique libertarian/left-peacenik issue that moves few votes (not a comment on the merits). If drones are killing terrorists — and they have, along with the collateral damage which is certainly fueling anti-Americanism — without risking American lives, the larger public won’t care, end of discussion.

Free trade: Gee, why not just throw amnesty for the “undocumented” while we are at it? Free trade dogma dominates the political class, the chattering class, and academia. In one of the presidential debates, when an audience member asked Romney how he was different from Bush, Romney answered… free trade! As if Bush didn’t shepherd several FTAs through Congress! As if Bush didn’t advocate PNTR for China before he even became President! As if Obama has not presided over three more FTAs, and proposed the awful EU FTA! Even if one agrees with free trade, it is hard to argue that that position is not hurting Republicans in the Rust Belt and other industrial areas.

Get the military out of humanitarian “social work”: IOW, junk the globalist neocon/neolib utopianism. That, after all, is the ideological root of the military’s mission creep. Such a worldview adjustment would indeed be bold, but Norris is not bold enough to suggest it (and he seems to be a globalist himself anyway).

North Korea: Norris doesn’t actually say what position the Republicans should take on NK, just that they should make hay about it without looking like warmongering jerks. Here’s a modest proposal: 60(!) years after the Korean War, let’s leave and, heaven forbid, let wealthy, populous South Korea (and Japan) defend itself for a change. After all, SK is doing well for itself under the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (I guess Norris didn’t notice that that was enacted).

Norris could have written a far more useful article by typing just two words: “Ron Paul” or “Patrick Buchanan”.

I admire the restraint in your debunking of the recommendation that the GOP seize an opportunity to carp about North Korea without looking opportunistic. “Get mileage,” “take shots” “in a way that doesn’t look opportunistic”? This is self-confessed moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

Mr. Larison, I appreciate this post as always, but North Korea is conspicuous in its absence on this blog. Can you imagine what would happen if Iran – ANY country, really – made the kinds of threat, empty or not, that North Korea has made in recent days?

Well, North Korea is basically trolling. It could be usefull to call them out on it, and Rand Paul may be the one to do so.

Seriously, people like the Kims love attention and hostility, what they absolutly abhore are indifference and ridicule (which is partly why more North Korea savy China is trying to defuse things by refusing to feed the troll in chief), and why Russia, who has intense personal experience with trolling dictators is completely like “North Korea trolling after leadership change, will likely promise to stop trolling in return for some money/rice/fuel for some years, in other news, bingo at 15 o clock”.
The problem with all of that trolling of course is that its fairly high stakes, spontaneous mistakes on the ground level by either side could propel this thing terribly out of control for everyone involved.

Normalizing relations with Cuba would be a giant win for the Rs to lose old white neocon image although it (especially Rand) should partake closer to the elections. If they do it now, Obama could move closer to their position and nullify any gains. (He is good at that as immigration reform shows his political abilities.) But at this point, any attacks on North Korea are not a good idea especially without an election nearby. No administration has ever been successful and it seems the administration ‘ignoring’ NK is making them talk louder.

Any thoughts on Puerto Rico as a state. They voted for in 2012 and it seems we should decide if we want the location as a territory or state. Don’t the Presidential primaries run in the territory?

Cuba has great market potential for the US. The beauty of socialist countries is how unproductive they are. They import from us instead of exporting to us.

Remember the good old days when, after hurling insults at us in the UN, the Soviet Union would buy our surplus wheat. This is what we should do with Cuba: just block our ears, smile, and sell them stuff.

There will be opposition from the Gulf tourist states who don’t want the competition and a few Cuban-American old-timers, but we need the market.

Nixon went to China as a President of the United States. Because he was in power, he was able to reconfigure the policy toward the communist country. Repubs are now in opposition and any gesture in that direction can only be seen as an individual attempt to improve relations which would not carry much weight or change any policy in a significant way.
Having said that, the only two people who could undertake it as a personal mission are Marco Rubio and/or Ted Cruz because of their Cuban-American roots and prominence in the party nowadays. There is no indication at this time this is something they are contemplating (although this may change).
I would say that an area where Republicans could be real innovators with potentially the greatest benefit for the country (and their party) would be to start building a framework to replace the “war on drugs” policy. This is a topic is of highest importance to Central and South American countries and it could have wide and significant implications for domestic policy as well. The whole concept of the “war on drugs” is a miserable failure in almost every respect which is creating a lot of extremely negative effects in Latin American countries as well as here. It almost begs for some fresh thinking. I think Ron Paul (and Rand) have some good intentions on the topic, but it obviously requires a mountain of work to come up with some fresh ideas and workable solutions. Involving our friends from Latin American countries and eliciting their opinions and input from the start would generate a ton of good will on their part and could prepare the ground for some innovative approaches once the GOP is in power again.